I decid­ed to wear a full face of make­up yes­ter­day, and I was large­ly pleased with the result. I did run into some prob­lems with a few things, and I’d like to keep track of my expe­ri­ences with each for­ay into Full Face Make­up I make for a while. That’ll help me nar­row down what…

It’s been a while since I’ve writ­ten any­thing about the skin­care and beau­ty aspect of my self-care rou­tines! After answer­ing a friend’s ques­tion about skin­care and lit­er­al­ly writ­ing enough for a blog post…I decid­ed to mod­i­fy it and turn it into a post, since I’ve got­ten to know my skin and what it needs a lit­tle bit bet­ter than I did the last time I talked about my rou­tine.

At long last, I’ve been able to record and pro­duce anoth­er episode for Self-Care Artist! Self-Care Artist is an ongo­ing con­ver­sa­tion about body pos­i­tiv­i­ty, make-up, men­tal health, social issues, and self-care in gen­er­al. I hope you enjoy! Please sub­scribe and com­ment if you like it, and let me know what you’d like me to talk…

As I wrote last year, I’ve nev­er real­ly dressed up for Hal­loween before the past year or so. This year, I want­ed to do some­thing spe­cial, espe­cial­ly since we were hav­ing friends over for a low-key Hal­loween hang­out cel­e­bra­tion and I have make­up at my dis­pos­al.

Roy Licht­en­stein has been one of my favourite pop artists since I saw a cat­a­log my art teacher mom had that fea­tured him as an artist. So when I saw Emma Pick­les’ YouTube tuto­r­i­al on how to do a com­ic book girl/Roy Licht­en­stein style look, I became uncon­trol­lably excit­ed. Espe­cial­ly when I real­ized I basi­cal­ly had every­thing I need­ed!

I ulti­mate­ly decid­ed not to dye my hair or use a wig — I thought my curls and cut worked well with the look as they are. I wore a navy dress with white and tan pol­ka dots from Dress Barn and a string of faux pearls to pull every­thing togeth­er.

I’m real­ly pleased with how this turned out. Maybe next year I’ll get even more adven­tur­ous!

Ear­li­er this year, in the wake of seri­ous depres­sion, I start­ed watch­ing make­up tuto­ri­als as a form of self-care. Specif­i­cal­ly Sinéad Cady’s tuto­ri­als, a la The Make­up Chair. (If you stop read­ing right now and just go sit on her chan­nel for hours, I will not blame you. Maude knows I do it.) This week, Sinéad talked about her skin­care rou­tine as of late, and I thought I’d write a bit about mine as well. This will dou­ble as a mini prod­uct review for every­thing I use.

I have com­bi­na­tion skin, both dry and oily — and some­times in the same places! It’s not unusu­al for my nose and fore­head to be both oily and flaky, which is frus­trat­ing to deal with some­times. In fact, my skin is the num­ber one phys­i­cal rea­son I didn’t wear make­up for years. (There were philo­soph­i­cal rea­son as well, but I’ve writ­ten about those before.)

It’s tak­en me a while to fig­ure out what works for my skin. In fact, I’ve ded­i­cat­ed this entire year to fig­ur­ing it out! So please don’t take what I say to be gospel truth — your skin will tell you what it needs and what works for it, so be sure to exper­i­ment until you find what’s best for you. Pay real­ly close atten­tion to how your skin reacts to dif­fer­ent prod­ucts and treat­ments, and be sure to give them a cou­ple of weeks before deter­min­ing whether it’s work­ing or not. Unless some­thing you’re using is caus­ing rash­es or chem­i­cal burns, then stop imme­di­ate­ly.

My skin­care rou­tine is con­cen­trat­ed at night before bed, so I’ll be start­ing there.

It’s been grad­ual, over the past year or so. But I’ve start­ed embrac­ing myself, my whole self, fem­i­nine aspects and all. I’ve been let­ting myself explore the things that I’ve sup­pressed for so long — “girly” things, “child­ish” things, vain and waste­ful things that I only deemed vain and waste­ful because I enjoyed them and I mis­trust­ed my tastes as a woman. I’ve been learn­ing to do what I enjoy and to love myself for the first time in my life.

A Few Notes

Everything written here is my opinion, not endorsed by any employer or person professionally or personally affiliated with me. Basically, I’m responsible for the content here — no one else is. Come to me if you need to talk about it.

Along those lines, all displayed artwork & materials are my intellectual property unless otherwise stated. That’s why you have to ask permission before using any of my work. If you’re using it editorially, ask permission, then cite and credit me for my work.

Don’t steal my stuff. As a freelance designer & artist (and part-time adjunct teaching), I absolutely depend on the income I earn through my work. If you like something, buy it. If you want me to teach you how to do it, hire me.